First Impressions and Being all Artsy Fartsy
Posted by: woscholar in Classroom Tools, Leadership, Teaching, tags: beau_bergeron, creativity, scott_s_floyd, videoMany folks like to introduce themselves at the beginning of the school year sharing who they are and what their philosophies are for the classroom learning environment. Kids just love this part as well (yeah right).
This is the most painful part of the year for me. At the elementary level when I taught first grade, they were zoned out from me within minutes. They just wanted to hit the centers I had set up. At the secondary level in the middle school classrooms, they sat politely because they knew the drill. First five or ten minutes of each new class was the “Hi, I’m Mr. Floyd, and….” part of the class. Boring. I try. Lord knows that. I just do not have the artsy fartsy bones in me.
Then, I come across folks like Beau Bergeron. This kid (23 years young) has a wonderful sense of conversation. I am more than happy to learn from those younger than me when they are so dadgum (Texas term) creative. I guess I can blame testing for my lack of creativity since it all started when I was in school (thanks H. Ross Perot), but probably not. Anyway, I digress. Take a look at what Beau has created below and enjoy. Most of all, take some time and think through the first impression YOU are going to create when the kids and parents come this year. I realize James Dobson says, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” But what impression do you want the kids to get about what your expectations are? I want to set the bar high and have them live up to them. When they see I put more energy into the classroom than I have to, hopefully they will do the same. It’s worth a try. Realize what you do speaks so much more powerfully than what you say. First impressions. Then, when you are ready to work on your own, shoot me an email. Let me know what I can do to help you create yours.
Enjoy Beau’s mind and imagination. PS - Realize he played this video on the white shirt he wore to the event.
Thanks to Christian Long for pointing this video out to me.
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June 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Yeah
What a great video (and cool tunes),
He captures the silence of his personality (which he admits is the opposite of his public self) and yet, it was so gracefully done.
Thanks for sharing
Kevin
July 14th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I just wish I had the forethought/vision to do that stuff. I can make some really great copycat versions, but the original idea just eludes me for some reason. One of these days….
July 25th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
This is awesome. I am a middle school media coordinator. I think I have some teachers who would get really excited about creating a video introduction to kick off the year. I am going to try this on my own and then see if I can write a lesson plan for teachers. I am also wondering which Web 2.0 applications might be used to create this type of video.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Becky,
Welcome to my blog. Good to hear from you. There are a number of ways to do it with web based tools, but might I suggest you check out the list found at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/02/25/online_video_editing_the_best.htm
One that I hear of used quite often is JumpCut. You can find it at http://www.jumpcut.com/
You could even do something very similar with PowerPoint, Keynote (my preference), iMovie, or MovieMaker. Keynote will also let you kick the slideshow out as a Quicktime movie.
A digital camera would do the stills and even the video these days. Consider a webcam if you don’t have access to a video camera. If you are lucky enough to have a MacBook, the built-in iSight camera will be perfect. Our district uses the MacBook to stream all types of events, and we will be using it to record field-based science podcasts next year.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:04 am
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